Alaska: Alaskans in Congress rank high in free trips By LIZ RUSKIN - Jetting to Las Vegas, Maui, Palm Springs and elsewhere, Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young have rung up more than $180,000 since 2000 on travel that private interests have paid for.

Accepting such trips, which are often to industry conferences or awards dinners, is legal. House and Senate members sign disclosure statements for each one, saying the travel is for official duty, not private gain.

Southeast Alaska: Waterman jury unable to reach a verdict By ANNE SUTTON - A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday after jurors said they couldn't reach a verdict in the case of a Southeast Alaska teenager accused of plotting with two former boyfriends to murder her mother. - Read this story... Anchorage Daily News - www.adn.com Top Stories U.S. News U.S. Politics Alaska Ketchikan

"As a chairman of a committee, it's sort of my obligation to go to these national conventions and . . . answer their questions, get their ideas (on) what we should do about the bills that are before us," said Stevens, the Alaska Republican who heads the Senate Commerce panel. Young, R-Alaska, chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Alaska - National: Leadership PACs not on lobbying reform radar By MARGARET TALEV Alaska Rep. Don Young gained infamy last year as the chairman of the House Transportation Committee who secured more than $200 million for a "bridge to nowhere" in his home state.

Less noticed was his support for projects elsewhere in the country favored by contributors to Midnight Sun, a political action committee. Known as a leadership PAC, Midnight Sun is controlled by Young, and its treasurer is a registered lobbyist with a client list that includes transportation interests. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

National: Saddam trial at uncertain juncture By JAMES ROSEN - Curtis Doebbler is one of two American lawyers on Saddam Hussein's international legal defense team.

Michael Scharf, a Case Western Reserve University law professor and former State Department official, heads an international consortium of war crimes experts advising the trial's inexperienced Iraqi judges and prosecutors.

In the first of several expected war crimes trials, Saddam stands accused of ordering the killings of more than 140 Iraqi Shiites in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, to avenge an attempt on his life during a 1982 visit. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Pam Houston at the Ketchikan Public Library last Thursday. Photograph by Marie L. Monyak

Ketchikan: Award Winning Author Visits Ketchikan By MARIE L. MONYAK - The Ketchikan Public Library recently hosted author Pam Houston who gave a short presentation and a reading from her first and most recent novel Sighthound which was published in January of 2005.

This well traveled 44 year old writer divides her time between her ranch in Creede, Colorado, which is situated 9000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande River and the University of California in Davis, where she serves as the Director of Creative Writing.

Houston jumps from one writing genre to another with ease. In Cowboys Are My Weakness published in 1992, Houston authored a collection of linked short stories which received the 1993 Western States Book Award. In 1996 she wrote the text for a book of photographs titled Men Before Ten A.M. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

National: Cheney's hunting companion hadn't made presence known By JAIME POWELL - Shortly before Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot Austin, Texas, attorney Harry Whittington while hunting Saturday, Whittington had stepped away from the hunting party to search for a downed quail in a mesquite thicket.

Both men are regular visitors to the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch and had hunted on the terrain, which includes mesquite trees and huisache brush interspersed with tall native grasses and pastures. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

National: Sheriff didn't investigate Cheney accident until next day By KATHRYN GARCIA AND JAIME POWELL - n owner of the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting companion said Monday "it did not even occur" to her to contact the authorities, and the sheriff didn't investigate the mishap until the next day.

None in the hunting party was drinking alcohol, said the owner, Katharine Armstrong. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

National: Jokesters firing away at Cheney over hunting accident By LANCE GAY - The first shooting involving a vice president since the time of Aaron Burr has lit up the blogosphere with political jokesters lampooning Vice President Dick Cheney's weekend hunting accident as "Quailgate."

"You know who's doing a 'there but for the grace of God go I'? Scalia," wrote comedian Al Franken on his Web site, referring to Cheney's longtime duck-hunting friend, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Kayhi's athletic program By Brad Groghan - Tuesday PM The news from the Muslim world really is scary By Bob Condor - Tuesday PM Isn't that just typical? By Darlene Guzman - Tuesday PM Ooligan By Bill Thomas Sr. - Tuesday PM Free Library Services? By Robert D. Warner - Tuesday PM Best reason to start buckling up By John Maki - Tuesday PM "Thanks" By Jerry Cegelske - Tuesday PM Honoring Our Youth at Elizabeth Peratrovich Celebration By Janice Jackson - Tuesday PM My First Day in Ketchikan By Alan Rudolf McGillvray - Tuesday PM RE: CALLING ALL SEATTLE MARINER BASEBALL FANS By Debbie Otte - Tuesday PM RIDICULOUS bridges By Charlotte Tanner - Tuesday PM Thanks for leaving the porch light on! By Scott Davis - Monday PM A Bridge to Possibilities By Patrick Branco - Monday PM Unleashed! By Pamela Lind - Monday PM Islamists don't understand us ... At all! By Mark Neckameyer - Monday PM Reuniting Communities By Irene Dundas - Monday PM Better ways to spend our transportation dollars By Emily Ferry - Monday PM Gas Prices? By Chuck Moon - Monday PM CALLING ALL SEATTLE MARINER BASEBALL FANS By Carolyn Wilsie - Monday PM Alaska to the rescue! By Bob Harmon - Monday PM What is the cost to our freedom? By Jay Jones - Monday PM My condolences By Susan Smith - Monday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan February 15, 2006 at 8:30 am TELECONFERENCE FOR Legislation relating to HB420 will be the subject of a teleconference on Wednesday sponsored by House Special Committee on Fisheries, at the Legislative Information Office, 50 Front Street, Suite 203.  Testimony will be allowed with a 3 minute time limit. HB420 "An Act relating to riparian protection standards for forest resources and practices; and providing for an effective date." For more information, call 225-9675. Information concerning legislation can be found by accessing the BASIS website February 16, 2006, 7:00 pm - Ketchikan City Council Regular Meeting - City Council Chambers Agenda & Information Packets For more upcoming meetings and events, check the February Calendar February Calendar Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data New Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements February 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S    30 31 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28         Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: The Day I Came To Ketchikan - I was really impressed when my SITNEWS colleague June Allen wrote about her first day in Ketchikan, all those years ago.

I can't remember my first day here or my second or even my third. I was born in the old hospital on Bawden Street. I remember playing in the snow on Jefferson Street when I was three or so and nearly drowning while trout fishing near Ella Lake when I must have been four. That's about it. - More...
Monday Pm - February 13, 2006

Jason Love: Aging - The older I get, the more I believe that we should respect the elderly. I'm at that age where things are falling apart like the warranty just expired. First but not least is ...

Appearance

When I was growing up, guys tried to look like Robert Redford. Nowadays we're all trying not to look like Robert Redford.

At least Redford has hair. My own peers are fighting baldness as if it were fatal. One decided to shave his head and grow a goatee ("The Satan Look"); another purchased a magical hair-growing potion ("The Chia Pet Look"). A third just stands outside the hairdresser with his nose pressed up against the window. - More...
Monday Pm - February 13, 2006

Bob Ciminel: Song of the South (with Apologies to Uncle Remus) - Longtime readers of this column know that my wife was raised in the South; her father's family once owned two large plantations, South Hampton and North Hampton, along the Sampit River near Georgetown, South Carolina in the heart of the Low Country. Alice and I have had a good life together, although we are complete opposites. Had my life taken a different turn and I instead married a steelworker's daughter from Pittsburgh, I would have never acquired a taste for cold beets, sliced cucumbers in vinegar, grits, boiled peanuts, and Moon Pies, although I have not lost my fondness for kielbasa, sauerkraut and Iron City beer. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006  

Preston McDougall: Chemical Eye on Love - The digital side of John Mayer's CD "Room for squares" has one of my favorite ultra-romantic songs - "Your body's a wonderland" - but the best part of the CD is the periodic table gracing the other side. (If you didn't know that, but you enjoy the song on your i-Pod, then Napster ripped you off too!) On behalf of chemists everywhere, especially those that are romantics: "Thank you John Mayer".

In fact, chemistry and romance have a long history. A comparison of books on Western civilization, and the history of science, will reveal that physics became King of the sciences during the Enlightenment, while chemistry became their Queen with the inadvertent help of Romanticism. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Rob Holston: FORMULARY OR FORMULA - A few days ago I came across a booklet that I had acquired six years previously. It is my Member's U.S. Healthcare Medication Formulary Guide, dated January, 1999. This is a list of all the medications that my insurance provider would provide. I thumbed through the pages just to see what I had been missing. Please bear with me as I itemize what I found. Cancer Medications & Immunosuppressants - 24 items. Thank God I had not needed any from these pages. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Dale McFeatters: Iraq names its leader - Shortly after winning a vote that makes him a certainty to be Iraq's prime minister under the new constitution, Ibrahim al-Jaafari did not sound like the gung-ho, take-charge type the job seems to call for.

"The smile on my lips would have been wider if I were excused of this responsibility," he said. And what a responsibility. The nation, which still cannot reliably pump oil or generate electricity, is wracked by bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, sabotage, credible allegations of death squads operating out of the Interior Ministry - and, oh yes, a spreading number of bird-flu cases. - More....
Monday PM - February 13, 2006

Dan K. Thomasson: Congress rehashes the past - As always, Congress is focusing on the sins of the past and not the present.

From that standpoint, the current investigations into the Katrina disaster are a familiar repeat of the blame game that can serve little useful purpose because the chances are good the errors will be repeated.

Who cares whether the White House knew on Monday or a day later that the New Orleans dam had burst? Should the president have dispatched someone to put his finger in the dike? Perhaps he should have really shown compassion by doing so himself. A lot of his enemies would have loved that. The fact is irrefutable that it was too late by the time anyone, including those in the path of the flood, knew it was happening. - More...
Monday PM - February 13, 2006